Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - President Trump has authorized the Department of Commerce and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to place a 100% tariff on all foreign-made movies.
Buffalo Niagara Film Commissioner Tim Clark explains they're also floating around the idea of a federal incentive to shoot movies in the U.S.
"My discussions with the union and also with the Motion Picture Association folks in Washington, everybody seems to be cautiously, sort of optimistic that there is something that could break that way. You know, the business has changed so much since COVID, and so much is being produced overseas now, it's at a crisis level. It's definitely at a crisis level in Los Angeles," Clark explained in an interview with WBEN.
The White House said that it still figuring out how to comply with the president's wishes.
Clark says that, thanks to tax incentives in the state's budget, the future of Western New York's film market still looks promising.
"There are two movies in preparation right now to be shooting simultaneously in Buffalo. One of them is the large Hallmark movie with the Buffalo Bills and that is a Christmas movie. But there's many more behind it, and there's really a lot of great things coming this way. Most of it, quite honestly, if not all of it, is the tax incentive."